The Lady of the Rock
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: "Perhaps," said Tyrion, "but my father-" "-ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but was ruled at home by his lady wife, or so my mother always said." The story of Tywin and Joanna - and Aerys. COMPLETE.
1. The Maid with Sunlight in her Hair

_"Perhaps," said Tyrion, "but my father—"  
"—ruled the Seven Kingdoms, but was ruled at home by his lady wife, or so my mother always said."_

**- A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_Lord Tywin did not suffer disloyalty in his vassals. He had extinguished the proud Reynes of Castamere and the ancient Tarbecks of Tarbeck __Hall root and branch when he was still half a boy._

**- A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_253 AL _

When he looks out of the arrow-slit, the world is all in black and silver - a star-sequined sky lapping at dark waves limned in silver. For a moment he rests his fever-warm forehead against the chilly stone and lets his face crumple in sheer exhaustion. He lets himself be the boy of seventeen that he really is. Just for a moment, he is no longer the Heir to the Westerlands, he is no longer the young lord who will lead his levies to campaign on the morrow, he is only a untried boy who smells, even to himself, green and raw and summer-sickly.

And in that moment, the girl slips into the library, her footsteps soft as a fairy's tread on the flagstones.

When he turns around, his face still wan and unsettled, she is busying herself with setting out food and drink for him on a table. He supposes that she is a cousin of some sort, you would know her for a Lannister anywhere for her looks. A hanger-on, there is no shortage of them in the castle the gods know. By her age he supposes that she is some sort of a companion to his sister, plainly from the looks of her drab gown she is a charity case.

"You may thank my sister Genna from me," he says to the girl. "It was kind of her to have refreshments sent to me at this late hour. I often forget to call, though I might be in sore need of them."

The girl looks up at him and he sees that she is little more than a child - twelve or thirteen at the most, no more. "The Lady Genna did not send me, Ser," she says gravely and her air suggests that she does not think of herself as a handmaid to be sent where bidden. This is a girl who clearly thinks most highly of herself - and he mislikes that at once. He has seen too many of his father's mistresses who thought most highly of themselves as well. "I sent myself."

"Why for?"

She pours the wine herself and says, "Because I thought you might be tired and hungry. You have been up here for hours."

He mistrusts this thoughtfulness at once. _She wants something of me, _he decides and his voice is clipped as he says, "I thank you for your... kindness. It is no less than what a man must do."

She spreads cheese on a loaf of manchet bread. "Then you are in sore need of a woman to take care of you, Ser," she says. She looks up and gives him the most infectious grin - in a moment the child's face is transformed, she is so endearing that he cannot help but smile. "Besides," she says busily, like a goodwife of steady years, "I've done this for my Father for years. He used to find it hard to keep track of the time too when he was with his books, poor dear - but he never found a midnight snack amiss either."

She looks over the food and drink with satisfaction and then waves airily. "Be seated, Ser," she says, as though she has the command of him.

He does sit and finds himself famished. He remembers his table manners before the girl but from the gleam in her witch-green eyes he can tell that she is amused. Unbidden, she perches on a chair before him and somehow, he does not have the heart to tell her to take herself off.

"So what of your Father now?" he asks her.

The gleam in her eyes dies down, like shutters drawn over a lantern flame. "He is dead," she says quietly. "He died last year of the Sweating Sickness and we had to leave our house in Lannisport. Mother died when I was little so I was sent here, to wait on your sister, Lady Genna. My brother Stafford's been a squire here for three years now."

"Stafford..." he remembers that cousin and not favorably. "We took him on as a squire after Ellyn Tarbeck released him." _And more's the pity for a thicker lout I've seldom seen. _Ellyn Tarbeck had captured three Lannisters in retaliation for her husband's imprisonment by Casterly Rock. All three were cousins that in Tywin's opinion they could well stand to lose. He had urged his father to send Lord Tarbeck home in three pieces but Lord Tytos had a tender heart and ransoms had taken place.

_And all for what? _Tywin thinks bitterly. _So that the Reynes and Tarbecks might join together now, perhaps to our utter ruination? So that they have had years to know that we are weak and have had time to arm themselves the better?_

The girl studies him gravely, the hard set of his mouth and the coldness in his pale eyes. "Brother or no brother," she says softly. "I would have done what you meant to, after Lady Tarbeck captured my kin."

"What do you think I would have done?"

"Hanged Lord Tarbeck," the girl says, folding her hands on the table. "And then sent his head back to his lady. Thus must traitors be dealt with."

"And your brother?" It is almost amusing to hear the sharp words from this slip of a girl's mouth.

"I would be very sad and sorry to hear of his death," she says quietly. "But I knew it would be the only way. When you pull out a weed, you pull hard. And when it is most noxious, you burn all the field around it to be sure that it has spread no seeds. You sat back and let the traitors have their way and now look what you have on your hands."

"I hope you do not presume to educate me, madam," he says icily.

She smiles at him, as though his coldness is only a mask and that she truly believes that no one can be angry with her. Not for too long at least. "Certainly not. I was only voicing your own thoughts, Ser. You looked as though you needed someone to say them aloud, to reinforce your belief in yourself." Her voice is tender and strong and far beyond her years when she says, "You are doing the right thing, Tywin Lannister, never despair. You _will_ win."

He almost melts to hear her words, the kindest words he has heard in what seems centuries. But he forces his face to keep still and his voice does not betray his feelings. "How do you, a child of twelve, presume to know anything of my opinions or what fortunes the morrow might bring me?"

"Father always said I was old for my years," the girl says sagely. "Perhaps it was all the reading I did. I've always been good at studying people and I've rather taken a special interest in you, Ser." Her eyes light up mischievously as she adds, "You'd be surprised to know all that I know - or rather that I've guessed - about you."

"And why have you taken a special interest in me?"

"Oh why, for the same reason any girl would," she says. "Because you're so handsome, of course."

For a moment he stares at her. And then suddenly he starts to laugh, mad laughter that spills out and makes his belly ache, he chokes on his laughter and the tears pool out of his eyes. It is mad exhaustion and despair, it is a madman's laughter. When he stops a long while later, she is still there, he has not frightened her away - indeed she does not seem like a girl to be easily frightened. But instead of looking amused, as he expected her to be, her face is compassionate.

"Know that you will win," she says gently and rising, pats his shoulder as though she is a mother and he her little boy. "Singers will sing of your victories over the Reynes and Tarbecks in days to come."

"I highly doubt that," he says sourly. "I am no Daeron Targaryen."

She begins to clear up the table. "Not now," she says, "but you will be as great someday. You'll see."

As she turns to leave, he realizes that he has not asked her name. "Joanna," she says simply, when he asks and then adds impishly, "I don't think you'll need to ask me again, Ser. Nobody ever forgets me."

* * *

_"I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair..."_

* * *

_256 AL _

When he looks down from the balcony, the world is awash with sunlight.

They are dancing in the courtyard, on this, the first day of spring. The Princess leads her ladies in the steps, today they are all of them, be they fair or foul of countenance, heartrendingly lovely as they dance in the bright sunshine. They wear their hair loose and flowing, declaiming themselves highborn maidens, woven with ribbons and flowers. They have put aside their heavy gowns of wool and velvet, they wear light robes of gauze and pale silks and muslin, arms bare and jangling with bracelets. Their cheeks are flushed, there is laughter on their lips and their eyes are bright with joy.

_Gods bless them, _he thinks, admiring the lovely tableau the girls make, _They could not be fairer if they were handmaids to the gods in the Seven Heavens. _

His companions are less poetically moved by the innocent grace of the scene. The Prince himself leads them as they jape amongst themselves of the women's carnal charms, pointing out girls they find of particular interest and loudly discussing what pleasures they would take with such and such a pretty virgin. They are screened from view by the ivied latticework of the balcony, they are sodden with wine as Prince Aerys' companions usually and Tywin holds himself apart from them, ashamed to be part of the company.

That is, until Prince Aerys calls him over. "Who is that one, Tywin?" he asks, pointing out at a girl. "She looks to be a kinswoman of yours but I'm damned if I can name her."

Tywin squints and looks out. The girl has the fair hair of the Lannisters, honey-gold ringlets where his sister's is wheat-blond. Her gown of green silk is pulled tight around a willowy figure and she dances with her eyes shut like a woman moved by the music, like a woman in a dream. Her skin has the creamy sheen of old ivory, her lips are like rose-petals and her face has the proud, austere beauty of a marble goddess. She is dazzlingly beautiful, even from a distance and he realizes that he remembers her. No one, in truth, who had ever seen her could forget her - as she herself had rightly predicted when she was only a child.

"My cousin, the Lady Joanna," he says.

Prince Aerys hoots and is about to say something bawdy but stops short when he catches the look on Tywin's face. "Well then you must introduce me to her," he says, "If I had to choose between all the gold in Casterly Rock and a cousin so sweet, I know what I'd choose!"

"She is a very young maid," Tywin says unwillingly and calculates her age in his head. It has been years since he has seen her. "She can hardly be fifteen years of age, Your Grace." The Prince's tastes run to more experienced women, warm widows and willing wives. And there are whispers that his tastes run dark, that he is oft wont to pay for his pleasures. Though most women would be honored to share his bed only hardened - and well-paid - whores can satisfy his foul lusts. They say he likes to use knives and whips.

"Oh but I _love_ young maidens," Prince Aerys says cheerfully and Tywin has no choice but to lead the prince to the courtyard after the music has stopped.

"Sister," Prince Aerys greets his sister pleasantly and - because he knows that she hates it - kisses her full on the mouth. She is to be his wife, she cannot say anything, but she grimaces and does not trouble to conceal her dislike. "You look beautiful today."

"No," she says curtly, turning away as though she has smelt something foul, "I look beautiful everyday." She is fourteen years old, an impetuous girl who has never been taught to hold her tongue, a girl who has always had anything she wants for the taking. She cannot imagine that defying her brother, that inviting his dislike on her when she does not trouble to mask her own, can have any consequences. She has not lived in a world where there are any consequences - not for her at least.

"And won't you introduce me to your ladies, sweet sister? I vow that each strove to outdo the other in beauty today."

"Why would I want to introduce you to them?" Princess Rhaella asks disdainfully. "So that you can debase all of them?"

"Well if you will not, Ser Tywin here will," her brother says, his eyes dancing in amusement. "I have a particular fancy to meet his fair kinswoman."

"I wish Ser Tywin had the good sense to knock you off your horse at the last joust," the Princess says and not in jest. "A few weeks of you being bedridden would have been so very pleasant." She snaps her fingers like a girl born to command and Joanna steps forwards and curtsies. "This is my lady, Joanna Lannister. Of Lannisport, not of Casterly Rock. Joanna, this is my tiresome brother. He says he's taken a fancy to you." She scowls at her lady-in-waiting.

"Indeed I have," the Prince says smoothly, "What man could not be dazzled by you, my lady?"

The girl is only fifteen but already she has the grace of the consummate courtier. She does not blush or stumble over her words as any other girl would. "All that glitters is not gold, Your Highness," she says, sweeping him a curtsey. She rises with her head high, like a queen. "Indeed, I would say that glass must glitter more brightly because it has more to prove. I think that you might have been dazed by a false sparkle, Your Highness, and not dazzled at all." She steps back lightly and the Princess smiles smugly.

"There," she says smugly and takes Joanna's hand, they are friends again. If the Prince is a fool, his young sister is little better and Tywin pities the two of them when they come to their throne. _If only Prince Duncan had had the sense to make a better match and not defy his father, _he thinks, _He was no fool that one, he only made one folly in his life. Not like Prince Jaehaerys and his spawn. _

Prince Duncan had thrown away his inheritance, whether for love or lust or sorcery's daze no man could truly say. He had taken to bride a common maid, one Jenny of Oldstones, a beauty with a voice like silk and honey. There were men who called her sorceress, she came from a dark place, Oldstones that was said to be haunted by ghosts, she was attended by a dwarf-woman who looked more like a witch than any good woman should and there was her voice... her voice was magic. She was barren, she had borne the Prince no children but that did not matter since he would never inherit his father, King Aegon's throne. It did not seem to matter to either of them - they held court at Summerhall while King Aegon, Prince Jaehaerys and his children lived at King's Landing. They were said to love each other greatly and that Tywin considered most suspicious. Love was always a trap.

At the night's banquet, he seeks her out. "You did well with the Prince," he tells her. "You are a perfect courtier, my lady."

"Oh, is it my lady now?" she asks him lightly. "The last time we spoke you called me child, though I wasn't then. And I don't think I'm a lady now either." She makes a little face. "Though I agree that it is easy to appear perfect next to my insipid princess. Is her brother as much a fool as she?"

"Worse," he has to admit. "Rhaella seems as wise as the Father, next to some of Aerys' follies."

"But he has such a pretty face," she says, her voice edged with malicious. "Men have died for less."

"Yes," Tywin has to admit. "He seems kingly. And when he is in a good humor, he can play the part well, he can be gracious and generous - better than Rhaella. _She_ is no player, she wears her heart upon her face."

"And that is the most dangerous thing any woman can do," Joanna says smoothly. "I never do and look how well I have prospered. Lord Tytos himself chose me above all others to be sent to court to serve the Princess. And we were, all of us charity cases and dependents, quite hungry for the position. Who knows how far I might rise at court."

Tywin eyes her askance. "As far as I know," he says coolly, "my father does little choosing for himself these days."

"I make a good impression on everyone it seems," Joanna says. "Princes, peasants..."

_Whores, _Tywin thinks, thinking of his father's mistress who would surely have done the choosing for him. And somehow he does not like his fair kinswoman as much, anymore. She is too cunning by far and he mistrusts a woman's cunning - indeed he has had good reason to. "You are a schemer, my lady."

"I am," she says frankly, "And if I were not, I would be a fool. Who would rather have to wife, Ser Tywin, a fool or a schemer?"

"Neither," he says, "I would rather have a biddable wife who knew her place and knew enough to follow all of my orders."

"Then you would never consider me for a wife," she says teasingly, "For I am the least biddable woman I know, though I can be all cream and honey if need be. More's the pity for you, cousin."

* * *

_"Tell me," Dany said, as the procession turned toward the Temple of the Graces, "if my father and my mother had been free to fol ow their own __hearts, whom would they have wed?"_  
_"It was long ago. Your Grace would not know them."_  
_"You know, though. Tell me." __The old knight inclined his head. "The queen your mother was always mindful of her duty." He was handsome in his gold-and-silver armor, his __white cloak streaming from his shoulders, but he sounded like a man in pain, as if every word were a stone he had to pass. "As a girl, though … she __was once smitten with a young knight from the stormlands who wore her favor at a tourney and named her queen of love and beauty. A brief thing."_  
_"What happened to this knight?"_  
_"He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden __could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood."_

**- A Dance with Dragons**

* * *

_258 AL_

When he looks out to the see the sunset on the Blackwater, he sees her standing like a figurehead at the prow, a mermaid with a woman's limbs, a mortal woman transforming at this most beautiful hour into a goddess.

Her golden hair is limned with black and the face that she turns to the light is tinted red. Tall and slim and dark as she is she could be a pagan goddess of battle such as the ancient made earthen idols of and worshiped. No man can say what colors are in her eyes, they have taken on all the rich, swirling tints of a dye-pot, and her lips are as dark as though she has sucked blood.

But her smile is her own when she turns to him, with her hand outstretched. "Well met, Ser," she says, turning her back on the sunset to speak with him. He can see King's Landing behind her, they have taken sail not an hour past and within days he expects to be back home at the Rock. She wears a new gown of scarlet - a most recent gift. On the occasion of her marriage, Princess Rhaella had dispensed silk gowns in the Targaryen colors and a rope of black pearls to each of the maidens who would attend her at the ceremony.

She looks well in it - but then when does she not? Her hair hangs loose and heavy down her back, her black pearls woven through some strands. At the royal wedding, not a sennight past, she was the most beautiful woman present - outshining even the sixteen-year-old bride. Though _that_ was not much cause of wonder - Rhaella had never looked so ill, in Tywin's opinion. Her face was wan and swollen, her eyes circled with black rings and rimmed with red as though she had spent a month weeping in place of sleeping.

But she was wedded and bedded now, little as she liked it, little as her brother liked it - the marriage was all the making of their royal grandfather, King Aegon. He had heard it said, by a dwarf-seer no less, that a great prince would be born of his line and being the Targaryen that he was nothing else would satisfy him but his grandchildren's marriage, though they were all but dragged to it. The young Prince and Princess had been dispatched on a bridal tour to the cities of the Reach and there was nothing for Tywin and Joanna to do but leave for a span home.

"She could not stop for weeping for days," Joanna said softly, "Sometimes she would rave most wildly and it was all that I could do to calm her down - none of her other women were of any help to me or her, they might as well be sheep for all the bleating they did. She said that she'd be a septa, she said that she'd rather join the Silent Sisters than marry her brother - sometimes she swore that she'd run off, that she'd rather be the whore of a good man who loved her, no matter how mean, than her brother's queen."

_A good man who loved her, no matter how mean... _he supposes that she is talking of the Princess's last adorer, one Ser Bonifer Hasty who crowned her his Queen of Love and Beauty at a tourney in the stormlands, some months past. A most personable young man but only a landed knight, hardly someone for a princess of blood to moon over - and yet she did. Still... he wonders why Joanna is repeating this piece of choice gossip to him, and for free.

Tywin raises his eyebrows. "You are tactless to repeat her words. They might have been misconstrued."

Joanna smiles artlessly up at him and puts a light hand on his arm. "Oh cousin," she sighs, "You doubt me. You think that I mean to curry favor with you by borrowed tittle-tattle, you still think me a most advantage-seeking wench. You are much mistaken, I adore you too passionately to trade and barter secrets with you as is the way of court. All I do I do for love."

When he chuckles unwillingly, she says more gravely, "I trust you, Tywin. I repeat these words only to you as a cousin - as a friend if you will have me for one."

If he were any other man, he would have said, _Any man would be glad of your friendship, my lady. _But he does not. He looks her over gravely and thinks that she would make a good friend - and if she so chose, a most dangerous enemy. "I have few friends," he tells her.

"I know," she says sweetly, "and I know that I am one of them, though you will not admit it now." She turns to look at the sunset, breathing in the salty sea breeze and smiling like a child. _You would not think it to look at me, Ser Tywin, but the simplest pleasures hold the greatest charm for me. To walk by myself in a garden with no one to disturb me but the birds, to read in my bed wrapped in furs while the rain thunders on the slats, to watch the sunset on the seashore. _

"Have you ever wept, Joanna?" he asks her. He cannot imagine her weeping, she does not seem like a girl for tears.

"No." She does not look at him as she says it. "Not that I can remember, not even when there is nothing else I would rather do, when it just hurts so much. Not when Stafford was captured by the Tarbecks and we thought he would come back to us in pieces, not when Father died, not when..." she stops sharply and does not finish her sentence. "No matter how easy it is to just sit back and weep, there is no point to it. I would rather _do _something than sit and weep."

At Casterly Rock, there is a suitor waiting for her.

Tywin is called to sit with his father and their guest, Lord Frey, one day while a servant is dispatched for Joanna. She is late to come, as though she senses the trap laid out for her. When she does, she is as plain as a serving maid - in her oldest gown, her luxuriant hair knotted away from her face in a severe braid. When she makes her curtsy, her face is curiously bloodless though she is as graceful as ever.

It is no use - no man would be blind enough not to see her beauty.

Lord Frey looks her up and down, like a brood-mare that pleases his eye. "Heh," he says approvingly, "My Raymun told me you were the fairest young maid at court when I was drawing up a list of suitable brides, he did not lie I can say that. How old are you, girl?"

"Seventeen, my lord," she says, folding her hands behind her back. She is not offered a seat by either of the two lords - as though she is too irrelevant to matter. Tywin draws one out for her nevertheless and she nods discreetly at him as she takes her seat.

"I need a wife," Lord Frey says without preamble and Tywin wonders if it is his fifth or sixth. He certainly has a talent for going through wives. "By the looks of you, you seem a good breeder - strong and young and with a fine set of birthing hips. And you're not hard on the eye either, as I'm sure you know. Lord Tytos tells me you have no fortune, you're an orphan, heh. Well I don't need a dowry in a wife, not like some men demand, and I have my own influence at court, aye. All I need is a good young girl who'll do as she's told and who's like to give me strong sons. She needn't even be a maiden if I find her personable enough."

"I _am _a maiden," Joanna says coldly, white-lipped.

Lord Frey eyes her suspiciously and Tywin all but glares at him. "That is creditable... if unexpected."

Lord Tytos beams around the table nervously and gives a shaky laugh. "Well then that's settled!" he says comfortably. "Lord Frey is an eager bridegroom, I must say, we can make the arrangements quickly and have you wed within a week! Lady Frey, now that's a step up for you, Joanna-"

Beneath the table, her hands curl into fists and suddenly he cannot bear it any longer. "No," he says. He does not raise his voice but both his father and Lord Frey look up as sharply as though he had screamed for all the world to hear. "No, it is not a step up for her."

Coldly he turns to his father, this father who has shamed him all his life and for whose death he secretly prays. "You sold Genna to his son years ago and shamed us all in the eyes of the world. There was never a more unequal match made until you hatched this one again. I was too young to stop it then but this one I _will _stop."

His father's face is as pale as though he has held a sword to his throat and Lord Frey begins to swell up like an apoplectic frog. "Too good for me, heh, some penniless chit? And who are you to question your father's word, boy? What's good enough for him should be good enough for the likes of you."

Tywin looks at him steadily, his pale eyes boring slowly into the older man's. He does not blink and finally Lord Frey is forced to look down, grumbling wordlessly. He stands up as though he has just taken leave of them graciously, taking Joanna's hand in his. "My lords," he says, bowing, and strides out.

She is as pale as a wraith but when they are outside that terrible room, she throws her arms around his shoulders and sags into him. "Thank you," she breathes, "oh thank you, thank you, Tywin! I would have died if he married me, I would have-"

Awkwardly he pats her back and she turns her shining eyes up to him. "I won't forget this," she says breathlessly, "I will do something to make up to for this, truly I will-"

"You do not have to," he says gently, "I did it for you because... because..." He hesitates and then finally gets the words out, "because we are friends." It sounds impossibly childish but there it is, the truth of it.

"Friends," she murmurs and laughing like a girl, hugs him again.

* * *

_"There was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense... " The old man hesitated again._  
_"Say it," she urged. "A sense...?"_  
_"...of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days."_  
_Viserys had spoken of Rhaegar's birth only once. Perhaps the tale saddened him too much. "It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?"_

**- A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_"Were you aware that our mothers knew each other of old?"  
"They had been at court together as girls, I seem to recall. Companions to Princess Rhaella?"  
"Just so. It was my belief that the mothers had cooked up this plot between them. Squire Squishlips and his ilk and the various pimply young maidens who'd been paraded before me were the almonds before the feast, meant only to whet our appetites. The main course was to be served at Casterly Rock."_

**- A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_"I was the oldest," the prince said, "and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Saltshore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. Yet she lived, by the Mother's mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking. I was a man grown when they were playing in these pools. Yet here I sit, and they are gone."_

**- A Feast for Crows**

* * *

_259 AL_

When she looks down the nave of Baelor's sept, she sees the only woman in the world that she has ever admired.

Joanna has always been slow to give respect, though she mouths the empty words and smiles the vacant smiles better than anyone else. As for admiration, there are few men outside of histories that she has had cause to admire - and no living woman. Not until she met the Princess of Dorne.

Princess Loreza cocks her head towards her and Joanna slips out of the sept and follows her into the shaded walkways of the knot gardens outside. "How long has our little princess been on her knees?" the Princess asks, but not unkindly. "Its been a good hour since I left and I believe myself to be as respectful to the gods as any woman of sense should be. I wonder that you stayed with her for so long, you don't look like a very devout young girl to me."

Joanna smiles. "It is nothing to sit with Her Highness for a while," she says. "She was always devout and in her grief she finds solace in the gods."

Princess Loreza nods sagely. "Poor child," she murmurs, "Perhaps I would do as she did if all my family were dead."

"Not all her family," Joanna reminds her though it is all but true. There are only four Targaryens left now - the new King, his two children and the infant born at Summerhall, Prince Rhaegar.

Princess Loreza snorts inelegantly. "As good as," she says, "All she has left is that overgrown child, her brother, and her father who looks as though he won't last more than a season. Her grandfather and uncle would shield her some from the brother, I hear - but her father does not interfere. And she has a babe in the cradle, born under the unluckiest star you could think of. Here child, lets sit for a while. I'm not as spry as I used to be and the healers tell me I should take care not to overtire myself."

They have been walking only for a few minutes but Joanna helps the Princess to a stone bench under an arbor. Underneath a pearl-studded girdle, the Princess' belly curves proudly outward - she is four months into her time. "Shall I fetch anything for you?" Joanna asks solicitously.

The Princess shakes her head and her voice sounds very old and weary as she says, "No girl, though I thank you for your consideration. It won't matter what you or anyone else does - I don't think this child is long for the world."

Joanna all but gapes at her. "Your Highness, you must not say such-"

The Princess shrugs. "Ill wishing can't do the poor babe any more harm," she says resignedly. "Do you know how many children I have lost, Joanna?" Mutely she shakes her head. The Princess holds up five fingers on one hand and then two on the other. "Seven," she says quietly. "Two sons who died before they could walk, a daughter in the cradle. A boy and a girl who came out dead. Two that I bled away, who never came to term. I have carried eight children in my womb, each as precious to me as a dream, and I have only one left now."

Joanna squeezes the Princess' arm, for once at a loss for words. Somehow she cannot mouth empty platitudes to this woman, of all other women.

"Doran will be my only child," the Princess murmurs and a smile of tenderness creeps on her hard face. "A squire at Saltshore in service to Lord Gargalen - he will be nine this year."

"You must be proud of him."

The Princess nods briskly and folds her hands over her stomach. "He seems a shy child at first, a bookish boy, but he is wise beyond his years for all that. A most deliberate boy, cautious and prudent - not like his mother, I fear. More like his father."

They were wed for love, Loreza of Dorne and her Pentoshi lover. When she came to her inheritance at the age of eighteen, there were no shortage of suitors for the reigning Princess of Dorne but she wed a handsome sellsword - for love of his hard young body the malicious said, because after all, being only a lewd Dornishwoman how could she see past her lust?

_But she chose well for all that, she must have seen something more in him,_ Joanna thinks. _He has always sat on her councils and dispensed good advice to her, he won the admiration and faith of her lords though half of the them plotted to kill him when she first wed him. Neither of them have ever taken other lovers, though that is the Dornish way. She trusts him now to rule in Sunspear in her stead while she has come to King's Landing to take her place on the Small Council. She is the only woman on the Small Council, the only woman in the realm that men would have suffered to occupy such a great position._ _A great lady_,_ a great woman, happy in her love and strong in her conviction._ _Would that I might be like her._

Loreza looks at her sharply, as though she can read her mind. "I would never wish my life upon any other woman," she says quietly, "you would be a fool to wish to be like me." Joanna nods dutifully. "So, what of you, girl? They call you the Light of the West these days, I hear. You are eighteen years old and the greatest beauty of the court - no don't blush like a silly chit, you know well that its true - and still unspoken for. Why, I wonder?"

"Perhaps I am waiting for the right man to sweep me off my feet," Joanna says demurely.

"Hardly," Loreza snorts. "I know your ilk, madam. No silly love affair would hold for you long - I suppose you're saving up for the highest bidder, eh?"

Joanna flushes faintly, though there is truth in the Princess' words. "It is not easy for a girl like me to be matched," she murmurs, "You know that I am an orphan, that I have no dower. Lord Lannister, my guardian, holds no power at court - any man who took me to wife would have only my beauty for his pains."

"Good enough for some men."

Joanna nods. "But not the kind of man I'm looking for," she says simply. "I want to be more than just Lady So-and-So, queen of a single castle and unknown outside the county with naught to do but raise children for a mean estate."

"So its power you want."

"Any woman of sense would," Joanna says dryly. "I have known what it is like to be powerless, Your Highness. And I do not care to repeat it again. I want as much as I can take - power and fame and gold." _I want that men should know my name as they know yours or Rhaella's. I want them to honor me, to respect me. _

"My, what a shameless girl you are," the Princess tsks, but there is kindness in her black eyes. She pats Joanna's hand. "But honest. Why are you so honest with me, child? You do not look like an honest young girl to me either."

_Because I admire you, _Joanna thinks but does not say aloud. The Princess understands. _Because I am always honest with those who command my admiration - you, Tywin..._

And just as she begins to think of him, she sees him striding down the arbors, beaming like a boy in love. "There's your handsome cousin," the Princess says slyly, "my, what a bonny maid you look when you blush. Walk with him, child, I'll go in to see to Rhaella. She shouldn't be on her knees for so long - moderation in all things..." Grumbling, the Princess leaves and Joanna walks slowly towards Tywin. They meet halfway and formally, he offers her his arm.

His face is radiant, he is smiling - yes, actually smiling. "Good news?" she asks. She cannot help but beam at him as well, it is so rare to see him smile but when he does... when he does...

"Wonderful news," he says and he is not a man for superlatives. "My sister has been safely delivered of a healthy son. They're to name the boy Cleos."

"That is wonderful news indeed," Joanna agrees sweetly although inwardly she feels anything but. _They are all my age - Rhaella, Genna - and they are breeding sons already while I am still a maid, still unspoken for. _

"I've had a messenger not an hour past," Tywin says, still glowing with joy. "And you are the first one I've told. I am an uncle," he says and chuckles as though richly amused. "I'll sail to go see her and the babe as soon as I can - she had her lying in at the Rock, attended by our own healers. She insisted on it."

_Ah yes, Tytos' precious princess, _Joanna thinks sourly. _She can have what she wants for the asking. She has never had to claw her way upwards, she should have a fat, petted tabby-cat for her sigil in place of a lioness. I pretended to be her dearest friend when we were children and all the while I would have most joyfully scratched her eyes out. _

"An uncle," Tywin repeats in awe.

"Soon you'll be wanting sons of your own," Joanna teases him, "high time that you took a wife, Ser Tywin." She wonders who it will be - he will take a high lord's daughter to bride, or a great heiress, he will seek as advantageous an alliance for himself as he can get. Perhaps he might even look further afield, to the princesses of the Free Cities.

Tywin shakes his head. "Before I think of a son, I must think of the inheritance that I would pass to him," he says darkly. "My lord father has done his best to squander my own - I would not want a son before I was safe in my mind that when I died, I could pass on an inheritance to him that I would be proud of. You have heard of the Farmans?"

She nods. _They are threatening to rise against him, _she remembers, _they think that they might have a better chance than the Tarbecks or Reynes. The fools think that he was just lucky in his last campaign. Idiots. _"Send them a lute," she says lightly.

"A lute?" He looks puzzled.

"Aye, and a bold man to wield it." She dimples. "Let him play the Rains of Castamere in Faircastle Hall but once. That should be enough I think."

Tywin considers her thoughtfully. "You are a sharp woman, my lady."

"That is not a compliment, I fear. I thought you misliked sharp women, Ser Tywin."

"No," he says dryly. "You have taught me better. I find that I quite admire them now."

* * *

_262 AL _

When she looks out of her window, the Western Hills are drear and grey as a crone's shroud, cloaked in fog.

She is one-and-twenty today and the face that greets her in the looking glass is still as smooth as alabaster. Yet already she feels that her hourglass is almost run out. She is a woman grown, she has beauty and wit, charm and polish, she has been a lady-in-waiting at court for six years now - and she has nothing to show for it. _I thought to be married by now, _she thinks, dressing slowly, _married brilliantly. _

Yet the grand offer that she dreamed of never came. There was no prince outside of a fairy story or a troubadour's song who would be a fool to fall for a pretty face. _I thought to be a great lady, the more fool I. The wife of a Lord Paramount at the very least, of a Warden of the Realm or a prince from faraway. _

_Perhaps Lord Tytos will marry me to a hedge knight, _she thinks dully as she dresses, _a rising man in his favor. Perhaps he will give me away as a sop to a rich tradesman, a pretty Lannister cousin in exchange for a few discreet favors. _For a moment she wants to sag back on her bed and sleep away for a thousand years, like a beauty from a song. But then she remembers who she is.

"A Lannister," she whispers to her reflection. "You might be a Lannister of Lannisport and not of the Rock but that makes you no less a lioness than Genna Lannister." And she smiles her infectious smile, a smile that no man she has ever met has been able to resist so far. Her eyes take on the bright, hard glitter of emeralds and for a moment she almost frightens herself with that gargoyle smile, as cold and dazzling as sunlight reflecting off ice.

She has never lost hope for too long, she never will. It is her greatest strength and her greatest sorrow - that she can always dare to hope, that she can never be content with what might be enough for a lesser woman.

The castle is quiet at the dawn hour. Casterly Rock is far from empty - Prince Aerys and his entourage have arrived recently, to honor the stronghold of the Lannisters - but you would hardly believe that at this hour. She walks alone into the great hall and there she runs into the young prince himself. He is still the young prince, only a year older than her, though his son is three years old. He will always be the young prince, he does not seem like a man who might grow out of boyhood.

"Lady Joanna," he says brightly and holds out his hand to her.

She curtseys. "Your Highness."

"What takes you out of your warm bed at this hour?" he asks her. She is surprised to see that he is not rip-roaringly drunk, though she can smell wine on his breath. "Though I must say I'd rather have you here, before me, then tucked in your bed unless it was me tucked in with you." He winks at her roguishly but she takes it in her stride - he has never ceased to flirt with her but then he is equally generous with his attentions to any pretty girl that catches his fancy. She is not alone in that.

"I am an early riser, Your Highness," she says sedately.

"And I am a late sleeper, my lady," he says. "I haven't gone to bed at all and now I find that I can't sleep. I thought a walk or a ride might clear my senses. Would you ride with me, my lady?"

"If you promise to behave," she says, dimpling slyly. He holds his hand over his heart like a little boy and she giggles. He is just like a little boy, she thinks warmly, a spoiled little boy, sweet and charming when the mood is on him, but usually a miserable wretch whom she longs to bend over her knee like a misbehaving child. "Well then, I can see no reason to refuse you," she says graciously, offering him her arm.

They ride out to the beach, it is hardly five minutes from the castle, and then they sit on the rocks companionably together like children. She sits wrapped up in her scarlet cloak but with the hood pushed back so that her dark golden curls tumble down her shoulders. The lighthouse is a misty orange speck in the distance and the sky is like dark lead. Not a bonny day at all, and he says so.

"It'll storm soon," she tells him, "A mermaid's storm, as the fisherfolk say."

"What?"

"They sing up a storm," she murmurs, "Short and sharp and sudden, all thunder and lightening. Vengeance when one of their sisters is taken - for they say that far off, on other shores, the sailors and reavers sometimes catch mermaids. Beautiful creatures with eyes like crystal and hair of silver and gold, their tails scaled with jewels - amber and jade and laps-lazuli. And then the men cannot help themselves, though they know it is terrible folly - the madness is on their blood when they hear the mermaids sing and they use them viciously and when they are broken, they flay the jeweled scales off them. It is mortal agony to them, it would be like skinning a woman alive. Then toss them out to sea to be eaten alive by other creatures. But the mermaids can tell..."

Aerys smiles at her. He has hair of silver-gold as well and his eyes are pale, like watered amethyst. _He is beautiful, _she thinks detachedly, _all the Targaryens are beautiful. They carry the golden blood of Valyria, the blood of gods and dragons. _But he is not a man, though he looks like a young god - not like Tywin is a man.

"Do you believe in mermaids, my lady?" he asks her.

She laughs. "Hardly."

"I do," he says softly, "I see one sitting before me."

She is about to say something but before she can get the words out, he has risen, he has his hands on her shoulders and his breath is hot on her face. "Your High-" she begins, but then he kisses her. His lips are surprisingly soft, astonishingly he is gentle as his hands caress her face and hair and then slip down the curves of her slim neck...

She pulls away abruptly and stares at him. He smiles at her like an angel. "I've always wanted to do that," he says lazily, "ever since I first saw you. The Light of the West they call you, Joanna - and for sure I have never seen a fairer maid."

She bites her lip and looks away. "You should not have done that."

"No," he admits. "But I wanted to and so I did. And so did you, Joanna. No, don't speak. You do not want me as a man but you want me as a prince. Why have you never married, Joanna, hmm? Always looking out for something better, aren't you?"

"There could be no honorable love between us, Your Highness," she says coldly. "I am sorry to have led you to believe that I-"

"You could be my mistress."

"Your whore." She spits it out.

"Aegon the Fifth had mistresses," he tells her. "Naerys, his sister, was queen only in name - a most devout woman who bore but one prince, just like my sweet sister. Surely in all those great books you love to read you've come across them? Serenei of Lys, the sorceress, the Blackwood and Bracken women... they ruled the king, they commanded the realm and all men knew of their power, they bore sons who were all but princes. I would let you rule me if you gave me what I want."

"You could take me here and now if you wanted," she says recklessly, "it is not like you to be so delicate, Your Highness. You could rape me right now and there would be none to say nay to _you._" _Except Tywin, _she thinks, _Prince or no prince, he would __drive a sword through your black heart. For me he would._

"Tempting," he says, "but I want more than just your body, my pretty Joanna."

"My love?" she asks and thinks that he has run mad after all.

"Better," he says, and she can see the darkness in his eyes. "I want you as my slave, Joanna. I want you to fear me and hate me and serve me as you do. Ser Tywin the Bold's pet collared and bound to me - he thinks so highly of you, my lady. I suppose you know." And there it is - the spite, the poisonous envy and hatred and sunk deep beneath it, the fear. _He fears Tywin. Why? _"I want him to see that you are no better than a filthy slut, that I can command you, that _I _am his master in all things just as I am yours."

"Do you think that I will ever come to you freely?" She holds her head high and her voice steady though she has seldom been so frightened. _A lioness, _she thinks. _I am a lioness of the Rock. _

He looks at her as though he admires her spirit. "For the right price you will. I know you. I can read men and I can read women, I know they are cheaply bought - and I know whom to fear and those who I should make fear me. Think about it."

He leaves her and for a long while, she sits on the rocks by the shore while a mermaid's storm begins to brew. When she reaches the castle, an hour later, there is a storm brewing within. Men calling for horses, servants flying, women weeping and whispering, everything helter-skelter.

She catches Tywin in the stableyard, just as he is mounting up. "What is it?" she asks urgently, "what is happening?"

He is in haste to be off but he is gentle with her. He holds her hand and says, "The King is dead, Joanna. Gods bless, we have a new king now."

She falls back as he rides off, her hands going to her lips. "Aerys," she whispers aloud. "Aerys is King now." And unbidden, the thought comes to her head, _And I might be all but queen. _

* * *

**A/N: Next chapter coming up soon! As of May 1, I've been on this site for seven years! And this is my 54th published story. O.o O.o O.o  
**


	2. The Light of the West

___"It fell to Tywin to restore House Lannister to its proper place. Just as it fell to him to rule this realm, when he was no more than twenty. He bore that heavy burden for twenty years and all it earned him was a mad king's envy. Instead of the honor he deserved, he was made to suffer slights beyond count, yet he gave the Seven Kingdoms peace, plenty and justice."_

**- A Storm of Swords  
**

* * *

_"That shadow Tywin cast was long and black, and each of them had to struggle to find a little sun. Tygett tried to be his own man, but he could never match your father, and that just made him angrier as the years went by."_

**- A Feast for Crows **

* * *

_263 AL_

When he looks into the royal nursery, his breath catches in his throat for longing. _A wife and a son at a hearth of one's own, _he thinks, _what man c__ould ask for more?_

She is kneeling on the tiled floor, her skirt of yellow silk pooling around her as though she is wearing sunlight. Her hair, the rich, deep gold of honey hangs down one shoulder. The silver bangles on her wrists glitter as they catch the light, her arms moving up and down as she tells a story. She wears a chain of braided gold, starred with diamonds, at her throat - a recent present from the King's own hand. The little prince sits before her, his colored wooden blocks spread around, his dark eyes huge in his little face as he listens.

She smiles up at Tywin through a curtain of sunlit hair, but she does not pause in her breathless retelling of the story. Only when she is done does she ruffle the little boy's long, fair hair and summoning over another lady-in-waiting to attend him, she rises to meet him.

"He seemed enchanted," Tywin says and resists the sudden urge to say, _as all men are enchanted by you. _"What story were you telling him?"

"Oh, his favorite," she says. She has been appointed the Governess of the Royal Nursery, a sinecure to be sure, but one of great honor. And he has heard tell that she has received some grants of land as well for faithful service to the Queen. Indeed she is the Queen's most trusted companion now and Mistress of the Robes - she has come a long way from being the humblest of the young princess's maids-in-waiting. "The story of the Long Winter and how the First Men and the Children of the Forest fought side-by-side against the Others. He can never hear enough of it - he assures me that one day he will be like the Last Hero and defend the world from evil." She laughs, it is easy to see that she adores her charge.

Soft as a caress, her fingers brush against the badge of his new estate - a chain of linked hands, wrought in gold. He all but shivers, even at this most bare hint of her touch, managing to restrain himself only in time. "It looks well on you," she murmurs and taking his arm, leads him on to the balcony. "Remember when I first met you in the library?" she asks him, smiling. "I told you that you were meant for greatness."

He bows his head. "You have seer's blood, madam."

She laughs. "More like reader's eyes," she says and quotes the old proverb, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, but the man who never reads lives only one. Once you read, you begin to discern patterns in the world about you." She gives him a sidelong glance through her dark eyelashes, pure mischief in her smile. "And I have heard that I might soon have to congratulate you for another thing."

"You have heard then?" he says, taken aback.

"If there was a place on the Small Council for a Master of Gossip, I would be more than adequately qualified to occupy it," she says and he reads only bland happiness in her eyes. Somehow that is disappointing. He had expected more of a reaction from her to this news. _She might be feigning, _he thinks, but not with much hope. "It is a good match for you. I am so happy that you will be well-settled at last."

"It is not a match as of yet," he says curtly. "Nor even a pre-contract - just words between myself and Lord Hightower. He was favorably inclined but so far I have not seen his daughter myself. She is only nine and a marriage would need to wait several years."

"They say her mother is very fair," Joanna muses. "Leyton Hightower wed his first wife for duty, at his father's bidding, but they say he pleased himself in his second choice. It is a most advantageous marriage."

"There is a taint in her blood," Tywin says darkly. "They call Lord Hightower's oldest girl Malora, the Mad Maid of Oldtown." Though admittedly, little Alerie _is_ born of Lord Hightower's second wife, Malora of his first.

"You are the hardest man in the world to please," she observes dryly. "I do not know of any woman in the world whom you might take to wife without second thoughts, no, not even if she were the Maid herself in mortal form."

_You, _he thinks but does not say it. _I would take you to wife without second thoughts. If only I were free- _But he is free, as well he knows himself to be. _I could marry you, _he thinks, _but it would be for love alone. _She can bring nothing else to a marriage but herself. _But would love be enough? Would it not sour in time, under the strain of my resentment, under the burden of her gratitude? Better that we remain as we are now than to take a leap in the dark for a moment's madness. _

"And what of you?" he asks. "You are no less hard to please than I. Have you any new suitors that you look favorably upon?"

She blushes pink for a moment. "Perhaps favorably would not be the word," she says, "but I have a new suitor whom you know quite well. Tygett."

"My brother?"

She nods. "I told him no, of course-"

In truth Tygett is his least-favored brother, his father's third son and newly raised to knighthood. A belligerent boy, not yet twenty, a pup in truth, puffed up with his own self-importance, always sulking resentfully in Tywin's shadow. _Why? _Tywin wonders, though he already knows the answer. _Why would he think to ask for her hand? _

"You should marry soon," he tells her darkly.

"Do you dare cast a slight upon my feminine charms, Ser?" she asks him coquettishly. "Are they in any danger of fading at any time soon?"

"Don't be a fool, Joanna. A woman must marry, she can never be happy without a home of her own, a husband, children. The maesters say a maid unwed for too long is in danger of unbalanced humors." Suddenly he has a vivid picture in his mind of her in her yellow gown sitting before the fire in his own chamber at Casterly Rock. With a little boy, no older than Rhaegar, on her lap - a boy with their golden curls and summer-green eyes. He swallows hard.

"I do not think that I could ever be happy with just a little home of my own, with nothing to do but fuss over a husband and children," she says pensively. "I think I would want more." She opens her mouth as though she means to say something but then stops abruptly.

"What?" he asks her tersely.

"Oh nothing of importance," she says lightly and he knows that she is lying through her teeth. "I was just thinking of the last letter I had from Princess Loreza - she had the most droll tale to tell of her little ones, Elia and Oberyn. Now I know you do not like her but..."

* * *

___"And my father? Was there some woman he loved better than his queen?"_

_Ser Barristan shifted in the saddle. "Not … not loved. Mayhaps wanted is a better word, but … it was only kitchen gossip, the whispers of washer-women and stableboys…"_

_"I want to know. I never knew my father. I want to know everything about him. The good and... the rest."_

_"As you command." The white knight chose his words with care. "Prince Aerys … as a youth, he was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord's right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the... the liberties your father took during the bedding."_

**- A Dance with Dragons**

* * *

_264 AL  
_

When she looks out of the arrow-slit, the world is all in black and silver - the cold moon an _arakh _over sullen Blackwater Bay, the ships on the river bleached to the color of bone. For a moment she rests her icy-cold face against the sun-warmed stone and lets the hot tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. But for the salty warmth of the tears clinging to her eyelashes, for the burning ache in her loins, she feels as cold as a corpse.

Numbly, she twists the collar of braided gold, set with square-cut emeralds of immeasurable value, that she wears. He insists on her wearing it, it was his first present to her - but then he is fond of bestowing presents to ladies of the court, though never of such great value. They whisper about the favor he shows her, but it is only that - the barest whiff of scandal. Few people take heed of it - there will always be scandal attached to the name of a beautiful young woman.

Aerys has already left, he did not tarry after shoving her against the archway and taking his pleasure. He never does, he seldom takes her to his bed and always dismisses her after he has finished with her. For that she is grateful. Mostly he insists on taking her wherever he wants, whenever he wants - dark stairwells at the risk of discovery, dank dungeons, the warren of corridors and cubbyholes pockmarking the Red Keep, godswood and sept, no place is sacred to Aerys Targaryen. He feasts on her humiliation, though thus far he has never used her as brutally as it is said he does lowborn women. Perhaps he is saving that up for her - she does know that the sight of fire arouses him violently.

_I went to him willingly, _she remembers. _A whore selling her maidenhead. I am no better than the meanest slut, selling myself to the best bidder. _No one can say that she has not been paid munificently for her secret services in the past half-year - grants of lands, ostentatiously for faithful service to the Queen, the position of Chief Lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, Governess of the Royal Nursery... she is a woman of means now, of some small measure of influence.

_When you bear me a child, then you will have all that I promised you, _he told her, after he had taken her maidenhead. _I will give you power, I will give you a great name when you are shamed before the world as a whore carrying my bastard. __Not before. _

So being his whore in secret, it should be to her advantage to get herself with child, it should be her mission. Yet every month, for the last six, she has doused herself with moon tea. She is at cross-purposes with herself, she does not want the child that would give her everything she had once dreamed of. _I cannot bear Tywin to know, _she thinks, _I could never b_ear _to let him know how far I've fallen. _

She begins to pull up her hood slowly over her hair when she hears a little sound. She screams out loud when she sees the urchin's white face sliding out of the dark stairwell and before he can dart away, quick like a gutter-rat she grabs him by the arm, nails digging into the soft flesh. She shakes him and slaps him with all her strength and he begins to cry, struggling out of her grip. He is a dirty kitchen-brat, black with soot and dressed in sackcloth but still, he could have seen... oh gods, he could have seen. He cannot be older than six or seven.

"Who are you?" she snarls at him and suddenly her hands are at his throat as though she might choke the breath out of him. _He's a boy, _one part of her says, _just a little boy, _but through the red mist of fury she does not care. "What did you see?"

"Nothing, mistress," he whimpers, "nothing, I swear on all the Seven Gods!"

Her hands tighten on his skinny throat and she puts her face very close to his, her eyes livid like wildfire. "You'd better not," she hisses, "I'll have your throat slit and your body dumped into the Blackwater if you tell. And I _will_ know if you tell."

She thrusts him away from her as hard as she can, he stumbles over a step and falls down a flight, crying, and she flees. _Let him break his back, _she thinks, _let him die here. _

"I cannot be your mistress," she tells Aerys the next day, very formally. They are walking arm-in-arm in Rhaella's gardens, as the King often does with the ladies of the court. "I will not have my good name sullied." He gives her a sardonic glance as though he is richly amused by her tardy conscience. She plows bravely on. "I do not think the married state is for me either. I shall serve Her Grace faithfully, indeed I am sorry to have betrayed her trust for so long. I cannot serve you as you wish any longer, I do not want anything from you."

He yawns politely as though it does not interest him. "Oh go your ways, wench," he says indifferently. "I won't miss you - you're as cold as a fish and you guard your cunt like the Lannisters do their gold."

_Is it this easy? _she wonders. _Will he let me go this easily? _If life has taught her anything, it is that nothing is every easy. There is no gift without its thorns. "I thank you for your kindness, Your Grace," she says, curtseying stiffly. "Perhaps it would be best for both of us if we forgot all of this."

"I don't think I've ever been called kind," he says dryly, "and as for forgetting - well, I have never been called a forgetful man either." He flicks his fingers to dismiss her and summons another young woman to take her place, to flirt with right under his wife's nose. She is a buxom young girl, a sweet-as-honey girl of fourteen in the flush of her first flowering - Janna Tyrell, firstborn daughter of Highgarden. On her finger she wears a topaz ring of his giving. She has big brown eyes like a puppy's, shining with hope to be so singled out. She all but smirks at Joanna as she takes her place at the King's side - the Tyrells have been a byword for acquisitiveness and ambitious ever since the Conquest, when they, mere stewards, rose against their rightful king.

_She thinks to make him fall in love with her, the fool, _Joanna thinks, _she thinks to prosper by his affection. _But all girls do, their families do, when the King's eye lands on them. _It has never taken any of them anywhere, _she thinks, _he_ _likes to flirt with them for sport, to torment his sister but they bore him, each as shallow as the next one. There has never been the merest whisper of a rumor about any of them, he always beds with women he can get for coin. Save for me, he chose me.  
_

But she is forced to admit that it was probably not for herself - though that might have played a small measure. It was for the chance to torment Tywin with proof of his cousin's shame.

The Queen and her ladies are playing catch in the sunshine, they call to her but she joins the young prince reading in a shaded arbor. He is a little boy, only five years old, you would expect him to be absorbed with a book of colored pictures, a fairy-story but no, he has a book of the history of the North on his lap.

"Lady Joanna," he says, nodding to her. He makes space for her on the bench and she ruffles his hair.

"What are you reading, my prince?"

He begins to tell her, pleased to be asked, but then breaks off abruptly. "You look sad, Lady Joanna," he says, concern in his piping little voice.

"Yes, my prince," she says softly. "I am sad."

He purses his lips. "Should I ask?" he says. "Sometimes when I'm sad I like to be asked - but then sometimes I just like to be left alone."

"I think I have the other kind of sadness," she says, "but I would love to hear you talk. Sometimes it helps to just listen to other people, does it not?"

He acknowledges the wisdom of those words with a nod. He is everything his father is not - quiet and grave where the King is merry and charming, shy, bookish almost to a fault but thoughtful, loving. No wonder his father cannot stand him. But he is not like his mother either, as volatile as a storm, with her sudden ferocious rages that give way to long spells of melancholy interspersed with hysterics, her habit of shutting her eyes to anything she does not like in the world, her unrealistic fantasies, her obsession with ancient prophecies, her fanatic devotion to the gods bordering almost on madness.

At least his mother loves him, which is more than can be said of his father - he is usually indifferent to his son but at times his feelings towards the child seem to border on active dislike. But sometimes she even wonders if his mother's love, the love of a half-crazed woman, can be healthy for him.

_Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will_ land, she thinks as he begins to tell her about his book.

"One day I shall go the Wall," he announces, "I want to see the giants and the mammoths and the Others too. I won't be scared."

"If there are any Others left I am sure that you will defeat them all, my prince," she says gravely.

He blushes. "Well perhaps not all of them by himself," he says, "I think I'll need some help." So he is still a boy of five, with his little-boy dreams of adventures.

"Gods bless and keep you, my sweet prince," she murmurs and kisses his forehead. "Never change." _Never become like your father. Never become like your mother. _

* * *

_265 AL  
_

When he looks over the girl, he is forced to admit that she is as suitable a match as anyone would expect her to be. Secretly, he had almost hoped that she would be found lacking in some way - a sullen temper, a pockmarked countenance, a touch of her sister's madness, anything that would permit him to reject her out of hand, without fuss.

Alerie Hightower is eleven now, in the blossom of her first flowering. A pretty child with long, straight pale-gold hair and violet-grey eyes. Shy to the point that she stammers and blushes whenever he looks at her, endearing in a little-girl way like a small white rabbit in a hutch. But that is all she is - a child. He can scarcely imagine wedding and bedding her, getting her with child, and he imagines her parents cannot either.

"I should like to be wed as soon as possible," he says to her father gravely. The girl starts up, her eyes huge in her small face, biting nervously at her lips. "It is past time that I took a wife, I would like to start a family of my own as soon as possible."

Lady Hightower sucks in her breath sharply and puts a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "My daughter is very young," she says. "Perhaps a few short years, to let her grow..."

"She has flowered," Tywin says indifferently. "She is old enough to bear me sons."

"The maesters say it is not healthful for a woman to bear a child before her fifteenth or sixteenth year, at the earliest," the lady says with more force. They say that the Lady Serralyn, formerly of House Webber, rules her lord by the power of her beauty and the evidence is before his eyes. She is a exceedingly lovely woman, tall and stately and in a way, she reminds him of Joanna. Lord Leyton nods sagely. "Alerie is only eleven - she is still a child in all but name, my lord. I ask you to reconsider."

Tywin nods. "And I ask the same of you," he says, as though it does not matter. "I shall be glad of your answer as soon as you can give it."

"Of course," Lord Hightower says and pats his daughter's head gently, as though to give her strength. Lady Hightower looks at Tywin as though he is a monster, the child looks frankly terrified. "As soon as possible."

The following day he receives his answer. The Hightowers are most regretful to have to break off the marriage contract - but of course it was no contract so he must agree, merely a verbal agreement between two families, certainly not binding in law or in honor - but they cannot bear to have their daughter, so tender in years, wed so soon. Perhaps if he cares to ask for her hand in a few years, oh five or six should do, then they might be more amenable... it would be something to see a daughter of Oldtown as Lady of Casterly Rock, the wife of the King's Hand, but never at the cost of her health and happiness...

It is settled most amicably, he makes sure to let them know that there are no hard feelings from his side. Lord Hightower seems more relieved than anything that he does not take offence. Lady Hightower though hates him with a passion.

_She is a good mother,_ he thinks, a little amused at her hostility_, a strong mother, she would have defied me for her daughter's sake and rightly. I would never have let a daughter of mine be married as a child to a man like myself._

All the way back to King's Landing, he knows what he must do, what he should have done a long time ago. He will ask Joanna to be his wife.

* * *

_265 AL _

In a moon's time, she will be a bride.

Already the seamstresses' nimble fingers are flying over the wedding silks, stitching away for dear life. Already the ravens carry new congratulations every morning to the Hand, already the western lords are drafting letters of application to her so that she might accept their daughters as maids of her chamber. Almost all is set for her wedding day - all, save one last debt to be paid.

When Aerys has finally taken his pleasure with her, he drops a ring on her table. She lies as still as a corpse on the bed while he rolls off her with a grunt. "You will keep your promise?" she says. "You swear you will never speak of what passed between us, ever?" She hates how thin her voice sounds, piping out like a frightened child's in the darkness.

He gives a dark little laugh. "Since when has a king ever kept his promise, Joanna?" He runs his hand lightly up her thigh, then sticks it sharply inside her. Laughs when she hisses out in pain. "But I think I will, for a while seeing as I might need your solemn sweetling. If you are sweet to me when I ask you to be."

So he will hold this over her head, for the rest of her days. She will never be free of the dark shame of her past. _If Tywin believes him, _she thinks, remembering Tywin's low opinion of the king. "I will be sweet to you," she says, loathing herself but knowing that she must speak the words.

She can feel the lazy smile spreading over his face. "It is not yet light," he says, pinching her buttocks. "the night is still on my side. Roll over."

"My lord..."

"Roll over like the good little whore you are, Joanna."

* * *

_"Is it true that Tywin was smiling on his bier?"  
"He was rotting on his bier. It made his mouth twist."  
"Was that all it was?" That seemed to sadden her. "Men say that Tywin never smiled, but he smiled when he wed your mother, and when Aerys made him Hand. When Tarbeck Hall came crashing down on Lady Ellyn, that scheming bitch, Tyg claimed he smiled then. And he smiled at your birth, Jaime, I saw that with mine own eyes. You and Cersei, pink and perfect, as alike as two peas in a pod... well, except between the legs. What lungs you had!"  
"Hear us roar." Jaime grinned. "Next you'l be telling me how much he liked to laugh."  
"No. Tywin mistrusted laughter. He heard too many people laughing at your grandsire."_

**- A Feast For Crows**

* * *

_265 AL  
_

When she stands, the train of her wedding gown snakes out behind her like a mermaid's tail, looking as light as sea-foam and mist. In truth, it weighs as heavy as a suit of armor - as heavy, perhaps, as guilt. It crackles faintly as she runs her hands over it, smoothing the stiffly-embroidered brocade with her sweaty palms. The women of her chamber flow around her, like the waves over a beached mermaid's corpse, gossiping and fussing and giggling and praising. She offers a mechanical smile to each and every one, and they all call her the happiest of brides and never look past the rich gown and the empty smile.

It was Aerys' and (ostentatiously) Rhaella's gift to her, the gown hand-embroidered by a septry-full of novices. The brocade is a warm tint of ivory, cut low to bare her shoulders and the tops of her breasts, the skirt clinging to her body and trailing out, the sleeves hanging to the ground and trimmed with vair. From bodice to hem it is embroidered all over with gold - a portrait of King's Landing in silk. Blackwater Bay flows along the hem of her skirt, the ships bobbing on her ankles. The city's hills are mounted on her knees, the streets crisscrossing along her thighs. On her bodice is the Red Keep itself, studded with freshwater pearls.

She wears her hair hanging loose, the bridal right of any maiden who goes untouched to her marriage bed. It falls to the top of her thighs, twisted into mermaid's curls and threaded with glittering silver strands. High on the crown she wears a coronet of braided silver-and-gold flowers. They have painted her lips and nails blood-red and jammed rings on her fingers. She wears nothing at her throat, her slim neck bared as though for the headsman's block.

They sweep her maiden's cloak over her shoulders, the clasps are two roaring gold lions. Soft red silk it is, sewn with a golden lion - it is almost amusing to think that her bride's cloak is exactly like her maiden's cloak.

Someone shoves a bouquet of lilies in her hand, Rhaella kisses her cheek, two maids-in-waiting pick up the heavy train and the doors of Baelor's sept open and she is pushed outside.

The tall heels of her shoes, cobbled with jewels, click as she walks and she knows that she is as beautiful as a daughter of the gods, a creature of air and water. At the altar, three men are waiting for her - her husband, her king and the High Septon.

In her dead father's place, Aerys stands to unclasp her maiden's cloak - a right which should have gone to her brother, Stafford, but on which the King had insisted. He is smiling blandly, as though he wishes her nothing but good fortune and she turns her cool, smiling face to his as though she is similarly indifferent.

He unclasps the cloak but as he is doing so, he cannot help himself, his fingers brush against her breast and he pinches her nipple. His breath is hot on her bare neck, he is far too close to her and he holds her too long - everyone notices and Tywin's face darkens. Finally he does let her go and gracefully, as though everything is well, steps back to let the service begin.

Tywin laces his fingers through hers and they stand together as the septon reads the vows, promising to cleave to one-another in sickness and health, in times of joy and times of sorrow, to be bonny and bright at bed and board, to be loyal in heart and loving in life, to be one body, one soul.

"I do so vow," Joanna whispers, echoing Tywin's words and as he sweeps her up in his arms (as though this is a fairytale), with his cloak about her shoulders, she begins to cry.

"I love you," she whispers, hardly aware of her words as he presses his lips gently against hers, "I love you. I love you."

After the ceremony, she has her bedmaids strip her of her ornate wedding gown as quickly as possible. She bids them pack it up someplace where she will never have to see it again, she would willingly burn it like a plague-infected corpse if she could. They dress her in a light gown of iridescent silk woven in Lys, girdled with a dozen slim chains of gold. Depending on the light, it changes color from silver to turquoise to deep green. She binds her hair in a net, starred with emeralds, and slides golden bangles on her bare arms.

At the celebrations following the banquet, she is brightly, fiercely gay. She dances until she fears that her slippers will tear to shreds. She says so to Tygett, when he partners her in a dance.

His smile is as thin as a blade as he says, "Remember that story we were told when we were children? Of the wicked queen who was forced to dance in shoes of red-hot iron until she dropped dead?"

She makes a face. "For shame, cousin. What a thing to say to a bride on her wedding night."

"It was fair," he reminds her. "She had committed high treason, having lain with men other than her husband, the king."

Joanna drops her eyes from his pale, searching eyes - eyes so remarkably like his brother's. "Still morbid," she says mechanically. But after the dance, she slips away to sit next to Rhaella.

"You look as lovely as a dream," the young queen murmurs, fingering a fold of Joanna's gown. "I shall miss you when you leave. I hope you will be happy." There is a luminous quality to her beauty tonight. Hands poised delicately in her lap, dressed all in white silk and with her silvery-fair hair braided with amethysts, she reminds Joanna of the stories she has read, of the handmaids who serve the Lady of the Moon. Her face is as serene as a child's, her water-violet eyes impassive.

The Tyrell girls - Janna and Mina - come to wish her. They look very sweet in apple-green, the brocade appliqued with gold flowers, but is there a knowing look in their young faces? Cassana Estermont, the newest beauty at court, glides over to pay her courtesies. She is on the royal cousin's, Steffon Baratheon's, arm. Nineteen years old, with coppery hair and laughing hazel eyes, a slim, dreamy-faced beauty with a mind as sharp as a Valyrian steel.

_A girl from Greenstone to marry the King's cousin, _Joanna thinks and smiles warmly at Lady Cassana. _For sure, she has Lord Baratheon twisted around her little finger though she is no fit match for him in terms of birth and fortune. _Indeed Cassana reminds her more than a little of herself.

They are just speaking of Joanna's gown when a high, drunken voice calls out from the royal dais.

"But that I had the First Night with your bride, Tywin!" Aerys whoops. "As all lords had the right to their bondsmen's wives in the olden times." He laughs and laughs. Rhaella's face is set in stone and Joanna can feel the color leaching out of her face. She does not dare look around for Tywin.

Cassana pinches her sharply. "Courage, my lady," she whispers under her breath, so that Rhaella cannot hear. "Hold your head high and it will pass." Heads turn to look at her and swivel back to look at Aerys. They see her sitting quietly by the queen, her face bland, and they see Aerys lolling on his friend's shoulder, wine dripping down his face and doublet.

_This is a nightmare, _she thinks, digging her long nails into her palms. _This is the nightmare I knew it would be. _She feels Rhaella's hand on hers.

"Aerys likes to make a scene," she says softly. "Don't fret. Steffon," she says, beckoning to her cousin, "will you see to my dearly beloved brother?" She is very fond of her handsome Baratheon cousin, the only son of her Aunt Rhaelle for who she was named. Aerys is ushered out, still laughing like the damned, and Joanna begins to relax. She does not join the dancing again but sits with Tywin on the dais and receives congratulations until her face is numb from being stretched into a smile and her palms are sleek with sweat.

Presently Aerys rejoins the company - freshly arrayed in violet silk and half-sober. He toasts the new couple's health before the hall and then announces, "It is time that they were bed, do you think not?"

Caron Rosby, a favored royal oaf, is the first to take up the cry. "To bed with them!" "Aye, bed them!" Men and women take it up and the hall begins to ring with shouts of, "Bed them! Bed them!"

The fiddlers begin to play "The Queen took off her sandal, the King took off his crown". Tywin squeezes her hand one last time before he is swept away by a crowd of laughing girls and women who begin to twitter about him and tease, shouting that the Hand's hand will be lonely tonight. He smiles gamely, he has smiled more in this one day than he has in years, Joanna thinks.

She has attended hundreds of beddings in her time, stripped shy or lusty bridegrooms with gangs of laughing women and sharpened the edge of her tongue in bawdy japes on the way to the bridal chamber. But in her own time, it does not feel like a game anymore. She sways dizzily to her feet and a man swings her up on his shoulder. It does not feel very gay and merry when she is the bride, the quarry. It feels like a violation, it feels little short of rape when Raymun Darry picks her up like a rag-doll and the men of the court gather around her, laughing.

Her slippers slide off and they begin to peel off her stockings. It takes too long for one man's comfort and he slides a dagger up her leg till the thin silk slits open. They tug at the skirt of her gown with hard fingers till it rips open and they fumble with the laces at the bodice and sides till it gapes open and she is only in her smock. She feels the night air on the bare skin of her arms and legs, the shift falling only to her knees.

She closes her eyes as she feels Raymun tumble her over into another man's arms, like a piece of meat, and then she feels herself being set down, her bare feet against stone, not velvet, so that she knows that she is not safe in Tywin's chamber yet. When she opens her eyes, she looks into Aerys' eyes, dark with lust.

"My little sweetling," he says, his voice slurred with drink but loud enough for everyone to hear. He lays his dagger at her throat and begins to slide it down, cutting her silken shift away from her body so that it falls in a pale tangle at her feet. He twists her arms behind her, pinning her against his body, his dagger digging into her back.

"What a beautiful whore," he says, licking at her face and throat. His breath is fetid, his tongue eager. "What a cheap and beautiful whore. And so _skilled_."

"Your Grace," Ser Barristan says uncomfortably and Aerys begins to laugh drunkenly.

"It is my right," he snarls, "It is my right and I grant the right to all of you, all of you who want a taste of the hot, eager little bitch! She came to me, wet and willing, the little whore. Lets get her wet for Tywin, eh?"

His favorite companions are as drunk - or worse - as him. They do not need to be told twice. She is tangled in a wall of flesh, pressed into place so that she cannot move, can hardly breathe. She cries out in pain as they slide their fingers within the cleft of her buttocks, between her thighs, twisting and pinching. They knead her breasts and stomach as they would dough, they pull at her nipples and hair as though to rip them off, they slap her thighs and hips, they rub themselves against her body and one man begins to suckle her breasts.

_Let me die, _she says, closing her eyes. _Gods be good, kill me. _

She feels a hard wrench and suddenly she stumbles into Ser Lewyn's arms.

"Your Grace, this is not fitting," Lewyn Martell, Princess Loreza's brother, snarls. Ser Barristan throws his cloak over her, and a few other men, older men and more sober, surround her.

Aerys is still laughing. "Oh go your ways," he says, falling against a friend's shoulder. "I had a taste of the slut first. I don't need another."

"My lady," Ser Lewyn says, "my lady, calm yourself. All will be well." He picks her up as gently as he would a kitten, cradling her against his chest.

"Thank you," she says, a thread of sound that he does not hear. They carry her up the stairs to the Hand's tower, where all is as it should be - the laughing women, the smiling bridegroom, pipes playing and japes flying. But they stare when they see her, white-faced and shivering under a white cloak, with such a small escort and all the men so grim.

"What is it?" Rhaella asks sharply and tugs at Ser Barristan's hand. "Where is the King?" A storm of worried whispers breaks out.

Ser Barristan makes a piss-poor liar, he blushes like a maid when he invents his story. His Grace was taken ill. No, not very ill, just a little dazed. The wine, you see. He was escorted to his chamber by his companions.

Ser Lewyn sets her gently down on the bed, next to Tywin and the women trail out tensely, with no last-minute blessings or japes. As soon as the door clicks shut behind the last of them, Tywin folds Joanna in his arms.

"What is it?" he asks urgently. "What is the matter? Gods be good, Joanna, you're shaking." He wraps the coverlet, red as maiden's blood and embroidered with lioncels, around her. He pours wine for the both of them - bridal wine, hot and spiced to fortify both bride and groom for a long night.

She cries without tears, shaking soundlessly into his shoulders as he holds her. "Do not ask me," she whimpers, "never ask me. Please, oh please..."

"Shh," he whispers, stroking her hair. "I never will, my love. I never will."

* * *

_She was as beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for the green of her eyes._

**- A Game of Thrones  
**

* * *

_I do not like his eyes, Tyrion reflected, when the sellsword sat down across from him in the dimness of the boat's interior, with a scarred plank table and a tallow candle between them. They were ice blue, pale, cold. The dwarf misliked pale eyes. Lord Tywin's eyes had been pale green and flecked with gold._

**- A Dance with Dragons**

* * *

_"We all dream of things we cannot have. Tywin dreamed that his son would be a great knight, that his daughter would be a queen. He dreamed they would be so strong and brave and beautiful that no one would ever laugh at them."_

_"I am a knight," he told her, "and Cersei is a queen."_

_A tear rolled down her cheek._

**- A Feast for Crows  
**

* * *

_266 AL_

Eight months later, the twins are born.

They slide the girl out from between her thighs and before they even have time to think of how to break the bad news gently to her, the boy follows, clutching at his sister's heel. A serving-maid, quicker-witted than the others, runs like a hare down to the keep where the father is wearing a trail on the rushes. To tell him breathlessly that he has a son and heir - and oh, a daughter too. He flips her a gold coin, his strained face relaxing into the brightest beam his servants have ever seen as he announces that the tuns of summerwine be breached open and that every man have his share.

Without stopping to hear congratulations from his brothers and retainers, without thinking to send word to his lord father in his mistress's chamber, he strides fearlessly up the stairs to the birthing chamber. The midwives are just saying that the children are remarkably large and healthy-sized for twins born a month early - but then it all goes to show that they have a strong father.

His sister Genna, carries a bundle of soft linen to him, as proud as though she has just borne them herself. "Behold your son and heir," she says. Gently, he peels back the folds and the naked red thing wrapped inside squawks pitifully. He hastily covers it again - yes it is a boy with a cry that would serve well on a battlefield.

"And a beautiful daughter," Genna murmurs, presenting him with the other bundle. His daughter looks as like her brother as two peas in a pod - dressed alike it would be impossible to tell one from the other - and he can see nothing of beauty in her crumpled red face. She has a fine down of hair on her head - Genna tells him that it will turn golden in time. He is pleased and happy beyond measure to see his newborn children, but what he really wants to know is that his wife is safe.

She is sitting up in the great bed, tidied up after the ordeal of birth. Her face is white, her eyes rimmed with black and her lips quiver when she tries to smile. There is no such glow on her face as he has heard there is on a young mother's face, soon after giving birth. Motherhood has washed her out and all that is hard and ugly in her stares at him starkly when he visits her. He sits by her side and holds her hand tightly and that seems to give her some comfort.

"You love them?" she rasps. "You always will?" She is not feverish, but her forehead is warm when he touches it, as though she is burning up with worry.

"Of course, my love," he assures her and lies, "They are beautiful, you have given me two precious treasures, Joanna."

She manages a tight little smile that threatens to dissolve into tears. _Birthing, _he thinks and decides that he is not made for the awkwardness of these surroundings with crying babies and soft, womanish maesters and twittering matrons all about. But he braves it out for Joanna's sake, watching as one of her bedmaids begins to plait her hair and pin it under her nightcap.

A midwife bustles about, saying that twins always bring luck, them being something of a Lannister family tradition. But a boy and girl at one is singular luck. "What will you have them named?" Genna asks, after she has (very properly) sent word to all who must be informed.

They have decided on names long ago for a girl and a boy - but hoping, all the while, for a more convenient boy. "Cersei for a girl," Joanna says. "For my mother, Cerelia. Jaime for a boy." A self-important midwife calls out that it is a fine, strong name, a king's name, for the little lord.

Genna stoops over the cradle, admiring them. "And they shall be the greatest knight and the loveliest queen that ever was," she says indulgently. She grins at her brother. "Tywin will settle for no less, Joanna. He has told me so himself." Tywin chuckles, richly amused.

Joanna's face is strained. "I fear that I am less ambitious for our children. All I want is that they should be happy and loved."

* * *

_"This is not... when Lord Tywin's father died he returned to Casterly Rock to find a... a woman of this sort... bedecked in his lady mother's jewels, wearing one of her gowns. He stripped them off her, and all else as well. For a fortnight she was paraded naked through the streets of Lannisport, to confess to every man she met that she was a thief and a harlot. That was how Lord Tywin Lannister dealt with whores."_

**- A Feast for Crows**

* * *

_Her grandfather had died when she was only a year old, but she knew the story. Lord Tytos had grown very fat, and his heart burst one day when he was climbing the steps to his mistress. Her father was off in King's Landing when it happened, serving as the Mad King's Hand. Lord Tywin was often away in King's Landing when she and Jaime were young. If he wept when they brought him word of his father's death, he did it where no one could see the tears._

**- A Feast for Crows**

* * *

_267 AL_

When she looks through her coffer, she finds only one serviceable mourning gown that will do for the morrow. It is an inky violet, so dark that in most lights it seems black. Velvet, with a subtle pattern of scales in silver woven through the weft, and trimmed with ermine. She directs the maid to set out the headdress that she must wear for respect tomorrow - a veil of semi-sheer silk, shot with threads of silver. And of course the jewels, the blood-colored garnets, that the Lady of the Rock must be seen to wear. She sends orders by the maid to be sent to the children's nurses.

When all is done and she re-enters their private chamber, to shift through her shoes, Tywin is still sitting where she has left him.

"Oh love," she sighs, kneeling before him. He is studying the chessboard before him, his fingers toying over one piece and then another. This is the first time in her life that she has seen him listless. This is not her husband, this is only the husk of the man. "You should not take it so much to heart. He was an old man and sickly but for all that, he died quickly and peacefully. It was a good end."

She presses his hand to her cheek. "Come to bed, my lord," she says, her voice warm and languorous. She emphasizes the title - he is Lord of Casterly Rock now, no more is he just Ser Tywin Lannister. "I have missed you so..." It has been nigh on four months since she has last seen her husband. After the funeral services they will move to occupy the lord's chamber and the lady's solar in the castle. It shall be their own castle at last.

He strokes her cheek absently. "What is to be done with the woman?" he asks suddenly.

"The wo-" Joanna asks and then realizes that he means the whore. She sits back on her heels and looks up at him. She has her own axe to grind.

"Do you remember," she says quietly, "how I was first sent to court? I was fifteen and Prince Jaehaerys had suggested that your lord father might send a maid of his household to wait on his daughter. Lord Tytos had all of us charity-cases lined up in the hall, all of us poor and proud and desperate. Orphaned cousins, portionless kinswomen, fatherless bastards. He had his mistress on his arm - that self-same chandler's girl - and she was wrapped in finer silks and grander jewels than any of us would ever dream to wear." She gives a sharp laugh. "We were Lannister girls, all of us! And we were made to look up to a whore."

"My mother's silks and jewels," Tywin says. There is a white-hot rage in his voice.

"Of course the others were the greatest fools that ever lived and never thought to school their features when she passed by, judging them. I was the clever one who knew enough to smile at her and be as sweet and insipid as a lovestruck girl. She took it to heart and suggested that I might be sent to King's Landing. It was a magnificent opportunity but do you know how it made me feel? Petty. Soiled and shamed. Angry. Humiliated. I vowed that I would pay her back in the same coin one day. A Lannister always pays her debts."

She looks up at him, the candlelight shining in her eyes so that they burn like wildfire. "Strip her for the whore she is," she hisses, vehemence in her voice as she remembers the night of her bedding. "She should be made to walk naked from one end of King's Landing to the other for a fortnight, by day. And by night, let her be tied in some public place of shame, to be used by any man who wants her. And then let her go." She gives a crooked smile. "I am not ungrateful for her kindness. It was because of her that I ever got to King's Landing at her. So let her live."

Tywin studies her calmly. Then he nods approvingly. "Consider it done, my lady." He slips his signet ring off his finger and slides it on to hers. The lord's ring and with it go the lord's rights and privileges. "When I leave for King's Landing, you will rule the West in my stead, Joanna. You were always meant to."

For a moment she is overwhelmed. She will not just be the Lady of the Rock in name, but in truth as well - she will be more than just the chatelaine of a single keep or mistress of a few paltry estates. She will be the Warden of the West in all but name, her command will stretch from the Golden Tooth to the western shores of the Sunset Sea.

"Thank you," she whispers, clasping his hand within hers. "I will be worthy of you, my lord."

He looks at her steadily and he does not say a word. He does not need to. He knows that she will be worthy of his trust.

* * *

_"Tears," she said scornfully as the woman was led from the hall. "The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. The man's weapon is a sword. And that tells us all you need to know, doesn't it?_

**- A Clash of Kings**

* * *

_"And Ossifer Plumm was much too dead, but that did not stop him fathering a child, did it?" Her brother looked lost. "Who was Ossifer Plumm? Was he Lord Philip's father, or... who?" _He is near as ignorant as Robert. All his wits were in his sword hand._  
_  
**- A Feast for Crows**

* * *

_270 AL_

Visitors might be excused for imagining that the twins are as alike in temperament as they are in looks, two peas in a pod, but to their mother they are as different as night and day. True they are both terrors in the nursery, imps for mischief, possessed of an unflagging energy and quick-flaring tempers. But it is always Cersei who leads and Jaime who follows. And it is always Cersei who is far quicker to lash out than her brother when she does not get her own way.

Genna calls Jaime 'womanish', for clinging so much to his sister "Some boys grow out of it," she allows reluctantly, when Joanna defends her sunshiny-natured boy, reminding her that he is only four years old. "But most don't,"she adds ominously. "_Tywin_ was never like this."

"Jaime is his own man," Joanna says. "He is not some copy of his father, not a poor shadow like Tygett. Jaime will make his own way in the world. Won't you, sweetling?" He snuggles up in her lap and she winds his soft golden curls around her fingers.

"He reminds me of Gerion as a boy," Genna says thoughtfully. She was old enough to see her youngest brother growing in the nursery, it was on him that she first practiced her mothering skills - but the poor thing had turned out just fine for all that. "Sweet as sunshine most of the time but he had his storms as well. Always laughing, always tripping after the older boys eager to do their bidding no matter how reckless. He was a dear, sweet thoughtless little thing."

Cersei, playing with her doll in another corner of the solar, sees Jaime on her mother's lap from across the room. "Me too!" she says imperiously, trying to push Jaime off. Jaime scrunches up his face and kicks at her face with his foot.

"No, _my_ time with mamma," he insists.

Genna scoops Cersei up, though she squirms on her lap. "Child, learn to defer to your brother in all things," she says sharply. "That's a sister's lot, a woman's lot."

Joanna sighs heavily but she does not reprove her good sister. She means well. And Cersei will have to learn eventually.

"She's a bold one," Genna says over Cersei's head. "Brazen and headstrong, you'll have trouble on your hands with her in a few years."

"Of course I'm bold," Cersei says indignantly, wriggling so hard that Genna is forced to put her down. "I'm a lioness!" She stalks off and Jaime slips off his mother's lap, immediately contrite.

"You can have mamma now," he offers but Cersei is uninterested, now that he is willing. She begins to ride her hobby-horse, humming 'The Reynes of Castamere' under her breath. No doubt she is imagining herself as her valiant father, whom she adores. Jaime toddles over to play with her.

"You'll have to shear his curls soon," Genna says dourly. "He looks exactly like his sister now."

Joanna smiles wanly. "You will think me a fond and foolish mother for wanting my son to be a little boy for as long as possible. But yes, as you say, it must be done someday. Jaime," she calls out to him, "come sweetling, its time for your studies." She sends a maid to fetch the lightweight writing desk, the horn-plate reader carved with letters and the little book of children's stories. Jaime, in a tractable mood today, comes without a fuss while Cersei gallops resolutely on her hobby-horse.

"Cersei, won't you join us today?" Joanna asks, pitching her voice to be plaintive. "As a favor to me, sweetling?"

"No," the child says decidedly, as she has said for days.

Genna purses her lips in disapproval. "You give her entirely too much freedom, Joanna. If she were mine, I would see that she brought up in the habit of obedience."

"She's a lioness of the Rock," Joanna says dryly, thinking that Genna herself is no less mulish than Cersei. "Obedience is not in her blood."

"She thinks she's a dragon queen, set high above others," Genna says, while Joanna sets Jaime to copying his letters on a slate with a chalk. "She hates to lose, that's what, and Jaime's cleverer at her at his letters and ciphers, so she won't stand for it. She thinks that if _she_ won't study, he can't defeat her."

"Only by a little," Joanna insists. "Cersei is a bright child, but she can't put her mind to anything for too long. Jaime has more patience, that's why he seems quicker than her now. But if she only applied herself-"

"Mercy, Joanna. You know children never care to apply themselves - it has to be whipped into them."

"There's more than one way to skin a cat," Joanna says demurely. _You and Tywin have ever had the liberty to ride roughshod over the world and you know of no other way. But I had to learn to sweeten my way with a little_ _honey_. She says no more to Cersei though occasionally the girl darts wistful glances at her brother as he reads a story about two cats and a queen out loud.

Presently, Joanna leaves to dress. She will hear cases and dispense justice, in Tywin's place, in the great hall as she does twice a month for minor disputes. When she leaves to hold court, her women attend her and she permits the children, who always clamor to come and promise so solemnly that they will be good, as well.

The great hall is full from men and women from Lannisport and the villages surrounding Casterly Rock. When she enters, with her train of ladies and guards fanning out behind her, they all bow and doff their caps to her. She can feel her fingertips tingling, nothing is sweeter than the taste of power. Her face as cool as an effigy, she takes her seat on the lone high-backed chair on the dais.

She allows the children to take cushions at her feet, her handmaids clustered nearby to attend them at a moment's notice. Genna and the rest of the women sit together on benches in the recesses.

Joanna smooths her hands over her green velvet gown and nods to the clerks and maester seated at a table below. "Let us begin," she says calmly. Jaime is bored quickly, when he starts to wriggle his nursemaid scoops him up and takes him out to play. Cersei stays for much longer, her small face fixed with concentration on her mother's. Eventually it is Joanna herself who sends her away, worrying that sitting still for so long will tire out the child.

That evening, she invites Cersei to help put away her jewels in their caskets - a great treat for the little girl. The maids are putting away the ornate court gown of deep green velvet, with its intricate gold scrollwork, when Cersei arrives. She has summoned only Cersei and her daughter is fully conscious of the privilege.

Joanna beckons her daughter over. "Help me with the catch, child," she murmurs and Cersei rushes to unhook the collar of braided gold from her mother's neck.

"You looked splendid today, mamma," she says warmly. She slips the rings from her mother's fingers - except the signet ring that she knows her mother always wears - and puts them in the little rosewood box of rings. She plays with them for a while, plucking up handfuls of silver and gold, studded with precious gems, and tossing them back in. "You were as grand as a king."

Joanna laughs. "A king? Not a queen?"

Cersei shakes her head. "Queens aren't strong and powerful and that's what you were like, mamma. Queens are only brood-mares." She must have picked _that_ up from castle gossip.

"Would you like to be like me, Cersei?"

Cersei nods vigorously. Joanna picks her up, winding her fingers through the soft golden curls. "You will be a very beautiful woman someday, Cersei," she says gently, as Cersei tries to fit a far-too-big ring on her own chubby fingers. "But you cannot be strong or powerful, indeed you will be fit for nothing but bedding and breeding, if you do not train yourself. It is not easy to live in a man's world, child. We need our own weapons."

Cersei screws up her face. "But you said girls don't learn to fight like boys," she points out, "even though its not fair."

"You know its not a fair world, Cersei, nor do we expect it to be. You were born a great lord's daughter, but only through chance - you might as well have been the pig-man's girl or born in an alehouse. But no, I meant other weapons."

"What kinds?"

"Oh there are a great many, my daughter." She ticks them off her fingers. "Tears. Promises. Beauty, feminine wiles - oh never you mind what those are, you'll learn soon enough, I think. Courtesy. But most important of all - wits. Tell me, sweetling, how do we hone a sword?"

"By whetting it against a grindstone."

"And why do we hone it?"

"To keep it sharp so that you can cut off your enemy's head with it," Cersei answers in all seriousness.

Joanna chuckles. "What a clever girl, you are. Now can you tell me how to hone a mind? No? Well, its by reading that's how. Remember, child, a reader lives a thousand lives while the man who does not read lives but one."

"What does that mean?"

Joanna tweaks her nose. "After you've read a few books I think you'll understand that for yourself. And why should we hone a mind?"

Cersei is a bright child, she answers at once. "So that we can be strong and splendid and powerful!" she announces breathlessly.

"So you see, dear, you do yourself a grave disservice when you refuse to learn your letters with your brother. You are giving him a chance to know more, to be better than you and heaven knows, the world will give him enough chances to be ahead of you. You are my clever girl, I know that if you only try you will do as good as - why perhaps even better - than Jaime. Women do seem to be cleverer than men, from my observations - though that might be because they haven't had their heads knocked around the jousting field so often, till their wits are addled." She pats Cersei's head. "I'll leave you to mull over this - run along to the nursery now, I'll join you two after supper."

Reluctantly Cersei slips off her mother's lap, sucking her thumb as she ponders this new advice.

* * *

_"A maid of sixteen years, named Jeyne," said Ser Kevan. "Lord Gawen once suggested her to me for Willem or Martyn, but I had to refuse him. Gawen is a good man, but his wife is Sybell Spicer. He should never have wed her. The Westerlings always did have more honor than sense. Lady Sybell's grandfather was a trader in saffron and pepper, almost as lowborn as that smuggler Stannis keeps. And the grandmother was some woman he'd brought back from the east. A frightening old crone, supposed to be a priestess. Maegi, they called her. No one could pronounce her real name. Half of Lannisport used to go to her for cures and love potions and the like." He shrugged. "She's long dead, to be sure. And Jeyne seemed a sweet child, I'll grant you, though I only saw her once. But with such doubtful blood…"_

**— A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_The Westerlings were an old House, and proud, but Lady Sybell herself had been born a Spicer, from a line of upjumped merchants. Her grandmother had been some sort of half-mad witch woman from the east, he seemed to recall. _

**- A Feast for Crows**

* * *

_Generations of women came and went on this land. Married, bedded, bore children with pain and with courage and were left to run the estate alone. Mothers and daughters-in-law inherited responsibility but no power, as husbands and sons gave the orders, took the profits and took themselves off. Crusading Squires left Wideacre for years in the care of their wives and came back to find the fields peaceful, the crops yielding, the cottages repaired and newly built, and the land fertile. Strangers on their own land, tanned brown from foreign suns, they retired at last to their home and took back the power without a murmur from the women who had poured their own lives and love into keeping Wideacre Hall and Wideacre land strong and thriving._

**_- _Wideacre, Philippa Gregory**

* * *

_271 AL_

For a six-month, Tywin lays aside the cares of the realm and takes up the long-neglected duties of his fiefdom. Since the first year of their wedded life, they have not been united for so long - he in King's Landing making few visits home, she in Casterly Rock with the children. At first it was cripplingly lonely but then she had come to terms with it, to gracefully accept it as her lot... perhaps to relish it, even. For five years, Joanna has ruled the West in his stead and when he arrives to claim his rights, she steps back as a wife must and wipes her face clean of resentment.

_It is his right, _she thinks, supervising the packing of items as the household prepares to depart on a progress through the westerlands. _Indeed he has been remiss for too long, he has been a stranger to his bannermen for too long. They respect me, well most of them have learnt to do so, but they fear him. It is past time that he took control and saw to affairs for himself. _Yet somehow, she cannot completely obliterate a lingering spark of resentment.

Their progress takes them to the Crag from whence the Westerlings have ruled since the days of the First Men. A proud family, older by far than the Lannisters, older even than the Casterlys who were once Kings of the Rock. In the days of the thousand kingdoms, they were petty kings themselves, living well on their gold mines, their domains running between the Sunset Sea and bordering the rivers that run past Pinkmaiden.

_How the mighty have fallen, _Joanna thinks as she is shown into the best apartments in the keep. She wonders if a hundred years from now, a thousand, the Lannisters will be in the same position. The Crag is a most romantic ruin, a crumbling castle of pale stone that overlooks the sea, overrun with ivy and old roses, a beautiful setting from a troubadour's song - but a ruin nonetheless.

The keep is poorly maintained and shabbily defended but the upper chambers, for the nobles, are surprisingly luxuriantly-appointed. _This is the new bride's work, _Joanna thinks as her bedmaids bathe and dress her. _Tradesman's gold to sweeten the marriage pact. _

She joins the women in the bower. The dowager Lady Westerling is in her dotage and Lord Westerling's wife long dead, so it falls to the young bride of the house, the heir's wife, to greet her.

She is a handsome girl in her late teens, tall and stately and Eastern-complected with a coil of glossy black hair and warm-tinted skin. There is an exotic cast to her sharply-drawn features and in her slanting, liquid-black eyes - she is beautiful in her own way, there is no denying that, but she will never meet the Westerosi ideal of beauty. She is richly-garbed in russet silk and chains of gold and her curtsey is as exquisite as though she has been trained at court. They say that her grandmother, the Eastern _maegi _who was married to the merchant grandfather, was a great beauty in her youth. If the girl has inherited half her looks, the woman must have indeed been dazzling to look upon.

_A girl of accomplishments and beauty and great fortunes, _Joanna thinks, _aye and wit too, from the look in her eyes and the way she is at ease in her command. Fertile too - not wed a year but she has already done her duty in the marriage bed and borne Gawen Westerling a son. But for her blood she would have been a prize for any man. But the best price her father could command for her was a spavined Westerling nag._

"You have good taste, my lady," Joanna compliments Sybell Westerling as she looks about the solar. The walls have been freshly limewashed and bordered with a delicate scrollwork of vines and colored flowers. Tapestries of richly-woven silk and brocade hang on the wall, embroidered to show ornately-depicted scenes of both Eastern and Western life. _So the girl is proud of her heritage, in her way. _The women of the chamber all seem to be industriously at work, sewing and weaving, no idle gossip being permitted at all - clearly Sybell Westerling has had them whipped into shape.

She takes a delicate sip of the rich summerwine set for her, in a chalice of glass rimmed with amethysts at the base. "You command your women most efficiently for such a young bride."

"Your ladyship is too kind," Sybell says demurely, dropping her eyes. "I was bred to command a large household. My lady mother was stern and saw to it that I was taught my duty well." She waves her hand negligently. "My duties are no strain. Presently I hope that my husband shall have charge of greater estates." She is an ambitious woman then, not at all content with her present lot. _My, doesn't she remind me of someone. _"And I am not so young a bride either, my lady," she adds proudly. "I am already the mother of a son, my Raynald."

"So you come of a fecund family?"

"Not from my mother's side, she bore only me and my brother," the girl says. "From my father's side yes - my grandmother bore sixteen children in all though sadly most did not live to adulthood." And of the sixteen, her eldest son bought himself a lordship and now he is Lord Spicer with lands in Castamere. _Tywin would never sell a lordship so cheap but Tytos had a softer heart. _

"Your grandmother," Joanna says. "I have heard much and more about her. She lives with you at present?"

Sybell lowers her eyes. "Only for a short while," she says quietly, as though ashamed, "With my lady mother and Lady Westerling both dead, I could call upon no one but her to assist me in my first confinement. My son is only a month old, I had thought to send her away in a short while - but I will see to it that she is removed from the precincts if her presence troubles you, my lady. I will see to it that you are never disturbed."

"Heartless words from a granddaughter," Joanna says. "I do not want her sent away - quite the contrary, in fact. I have heard that she has much knowledge of spells and charms - Eastern enchantments. The smallfolk call her Maggy, in that I think they have only twisted the word _maegi_."

Sybell bites her lip like a child caught at wrongdoing. "She is no sorceress, my lady," she says nervously, "only a wisewoman and healer. A good woman, a godly woman, much advanced in years..."

Joanna laughs softly. "I have no need of a godly woman," she says frankly, "I have a septry full of septas who are charged to pray for my health twice a day. What I have need of is a sorceress, a woman like your grandmother."

"I can promise nothing, my lady. My grandmother's skills may not be commanded." The girl hesitates. "She will never give you an answer to please."

"I hear enough of answers that please me everyday. All I want is the truth." Softening her voice, Joanna adds, "I have only a simple request of her. Nothing more - I would never think to blame you for anything that passes between her and me, rest your mind. Have her sent to me."

"Of course, my lady. Everything shall be as you say." Sybell's face and voice are blandly acquiescent but Joanna knows that under her silken armpits, she must be sweating like a pig.

She meets with the _maegi _on the castle roof at the hour of evensong. Together they sit on a stone bench and watch the sun setting over the sea. Joanna takes a liking to the old woman at once. She is as crusty as a crab and as hideous as a snake, but there is no mistaking the aura of power that she wears about herself like a cloak, no masking the piercing brilliance in her black eyes. Sybell hovers anxiously nearby, as though hoping to monitor the conversation, but she is sent away by Joanna. She wears a face like a woman being led to execution as she climbs down the stairs to the castle, leaving the older women alone.

"I cannot conceive a child," she tells the _maegi _bluntly._ I cannot conceive a child with Tywin._ "I have been barren for five years and it is needful that I bear a child." _Tywin's child. _"It is true that we do not see much of eachother, with him at court, but we see enough and I am worried."

"Some men are slow to plant their seed," the woman says, equally bluntly. "It is not enough that the fallow be fertile if the seeds are weak and poor in number. Has he any bastards that you know of?"

She shakes her head, no. The idea of Tywin fathering a bastard is laughable. "He has only had three women in his life," she says, "And he has never lain with another since our marriage."

"I'll take your word for it," the old woman says, raising her eyebrows. She prescribes a course of herbs to be ingested both by her and Tywin, warning her that they might be slow to act. "But you have something more to ask of me, is it not?" the old woman finally asks, with a crone's maliciousness. "Some dark, deep secret that you carry deep in your bosom?"

"It cannot go beyond us both." Joanna looks the crone square in the eye. "I will have you strung up by your own entrails and left to rot under the sun, until you are carpeted in flies and your heart bursts through your chest, if you dare breathe a word of anything that passes between us. I will have your corpse thrown to the dogs."

The old woman closes her eyes briefly. She is a follower of the Red God of the East, her body is to be burnt on a pyre heaped with wine and silk and paper coins on her death. The flesh must be stripped clean from the bones by the purifying fires, to be ripped apart by dogs is the most terrible sacrilege for then her soul will be trapped forever in a grey limbo. "It shall be as you say, my lady," she says finally. "I shall never betray your trust."

Joanna slides a ring off her finger and offers it to the women. Aerys' ring, his present to her on the last night he lay with her and planted his seed in her womb. "You deal in blood-magic, I am told."

"Aye," the old woman says, smiling. "There is no law against it. Yet."

"The septons mislike it."

"But they do not rule the land," she says shrewdly. "And they never will, the Lord of Light be good. It is the richest folly to put any man who swears that he has the ear of the gods on a throne."

_Aerys thinks he does, _Joanna thinks, remembering his latest follies. _He thinks that he is all but a god himself. _Joanna offers her hand to the woman. "I have read that this is the most ancient and powerful of magics," she says quietly. "And the darkest." The old woman nods. "It is not for myself that I ask. It is for my children. Will my husband love and cherish them all their days? Will they be all that he dreams they will be?"

"Your husband," the _maegi _says softly. "You do not say their father?"

"They are one and the same, as you must know," Joanna says steadily, though she knows that the woman will soon know the truth of it. Her blood will sing of it. "Do you dare malign me?"

"One and the same. Of course. By your leave, my lady."

Joanna puts her hand between the crone's wrinkled ones. They are small and brown, paper-thin and blotched with the spots of old age. The _maegi _notices her looking and gives a rasping laugh, "They were once as white and fair as yours, my lady. Once I was cherished for my beauty." Abruptly, she bites deep into Joanna's finger and sucks the blood. She licks it off, every drop, till the cut seals itself again and only then does she look up.

"Your son will be a shining knight, so great that there shall be no man or woman or child who does not know his name," she says, her voice thin and high and singsong, her eyes unseeing. "Your daughter a queen of beauty and mother to kings. Your husband shall cherish them more than any son of his own siring, but in his own way. In his own way."

* * *

_When she was just a little girl, her father had promised her that she would marry Rhaegar. She could not have been more than six or seven. "Never speak of it, child," he had told her, smiling his secret smile that only Cersei ever saw. "Not until His Grace agrees to the betrothal. It must remain our secret for now."_

**- A Feast for Crows**

* * *

_274 AL  
_

The children splash around in the water like fishermen's whelps - barefoot and sand-squelched and shrieking with laughter. Cersei wears a crown of wildflowers, plucked by her father and made by her mother, the train of her gown looped through her belt so that her legs are bare to the knee - a sight that would no doubt have shocked her septa into fainting. They both have wooden swords, toys from the nursery chest for which they are too old now, really (being eight), and they duel in the seawater. Jaime is the better of course - he has been training for over a year now - but he is generous enough to let his sister win. Sometimes. **  
**

They no longer look like two peas in a pod and that almost makes her sad - though of course Tywin would never think to look at it that way. Cersei's hair reaches to her waist now, Jaime's curls are cropped close to his head. They have both exchanged the smocks of infancy - Cersei for gowns who's long trains she is being taught how to manage, Jaime for the easy comfort of breeches.

She sits with Tywin on a rock jutting out into the sea, leaning her head on her husband's shoulder, his arm around her waist, their feet both bare.

"Do you remember," he asks her suddenly, "the time they exchanged clothing? Jaime sewing with your women in the bower and Cersei in the practice yard with the other boys?"

She laughs. "They were six and it was hard to tell them apart, with their hair the same length then. Jaime's stitches were no less crooked than Cersei's and Cersei is no less fierce than her brother, given the right tools."

Tywin chuckles too. "She is growing into a beautiful young woman," he says, kissing her forehead tenderly, "just like her mother."

"I would give anything if Jaime were to be like you, Tywin," she whispers, pressing her face deeper into his shoulder. "I have missed you so much." They have not seen each-other for three months now and it is good to be at home with him. It is good to just sit with him, her legs dangling above the silvery waves and the warm sea-breeze rifling through her hair. _What woman could want more? _she thinks. _Her little children playin__g in the water and her husband holding her close. _

He nods absently. "I have been thinking about matching Cersei," he says abruptly.

She blinks at him, surprised. She knows he is always planning but... "Cersei is only eight."

He nods. "Old enough for the match I am thinking of. It will need much arranging."

Something in his face gives her pause. "You are not thinking of Prince Rhaegar?" she asks incredulously. "Our daughter a queen?"

He cannot help smiling. "Genna herself told you that I would settle for no less, when Cersei was born," he reminds her. "And do you really consider it so far-fetched that my daughter should marry Aerys' son?" She can see the fierce pride in his face.

_Your daughter a queen of beauty and mother to kings. _"No," she murmurs, remembering the _maegi_, "not too far-fetched, at all."

"There have been many princes who have taken their Hands' daughters to wife," he reminds her, reasonably enough. "Yet far the queen has not borne a daughter, and Rhaegar is almost a man grown now - he will be six-and-ten on his next name-day. They have scoured the Free Cities for brides, but they have found none to suit. What other possible option could there be but Cersei?"

"Aerys will never ask you for her hand," Joanna warns him. "He is too proud." And in her heart, she wonders if Aerys knows that Cersei is his own daughter, Rhaegar's half-sister. _Surely he can cipher as well as the next man. Twins brought to bed a month early and yet hale and hearty. _She wonders if that will make him more amenable to the marriage - or whether he truly does not know. So far he has given her no inclination, indeed she has scarcely seen him in the years following her wedding save at the scant few court functions she is forced to attend.

"I know," Tywin acknowledges. "I will ask him. It will be at an affair of great magnificence, a tourney perhaps to show the world the might of Casterly Rock. Such things take much planning."

"I think I shall be up to it," she says dryly, knowing that the lion's share of the planning will fall on her shoulders since she rules the westerlands. "But I think you will have to delay it for a good while yet. I doubt that I shall be up to such an onerous task soon."

He begins to frown, but stops as her face lights up with an incandescent smile. "Joanna?" he asks slowly.

"My love," she whispers, placing his hand flat on her stomach and wrapping her arms around him. "I am with child."

* * *

**A/N: I thought it interesting that Stafford's daughter, Cersei's first cousin is named Cerenna. Presumably the 'Cer' part of the name came from Joanna's branch of the Lannister family - perhaps from both her and Stafford's mother. Oh and its my birthday today! :) :) :)  
**


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